Cale Green and Matthew Mulhelm

[00:02] CALE GREEN: My name is Cale Green. I am 31 years old. It is December 29, 2021. I am currently talking from Anchorage, Alaska, sitting inside my office, and I am sitting across digitally from Matthew. And this is the first time that I've seen Matthew or heard their name in connection with the person that I'm now seeing.

[00:28] MATTHEW MULHELM: My name is Matthew Mulhelm I am 39 years old. Today is December 29, 2001, and I am sitting in my home in West Anchorage. My conversation partner's name is Cale and we have never met before today. I'll start. So, Cale what made you want to do this interview today?

[00:59] CALE GREEN: I thought it sounded like a cool opportunity to be able to meet someone in a non, like, chat roulette way where it's like somewhere in between. Chat roulette. Back when I was in college, that was a thing that happened, and somewhere in between that and an online dating app with profiles. Given that people selected us to be able to talk with one another on whatever metrics in which they're considering to be able to figure out how to have a conversation, so I thought that was kind of a fun, exciting reason to meet somebody new. So excited to meet you. And do I ask it back now? Is that how this works? Okay, Matthew, what made you want to do this interview today?

[01:46] MATTHEW MULHELM: I heard a snippet on the radio right around requesting people to join or to participate in this. And I think it was like the night before I had had a conversation with somebody where I was saying that since the pandemic started, I have been living in a vacuum of like minded people. And really we end up in our small bubbles. And what we lose by doing that is that, like, I wasn't interacting with the general public for the most part. And when I was, I was interacting in places or spaces where people were going to be very like minded or where they were so superficial, you'd never have, like, a real conversation. So it sounded to me like this was an opportunity to have a deep conversation with a stranger. Like, that's an opportunity that you might not get very often in life. And it's the kind of thing that I remember happening, like, on the bus or on the subway or, you know, in the grocery store. We're not. I'm not doing any of that right now. Also, I live in Anchorage, so, you know, I'm not on the subway like I was when I was in New York. So I just really wanted to do something to meet with somebody who was different and kind of out there and not in my pandemic bubble.

[03:01] CALE GREEN: So am I allowed to ask something? Just, like, to make sure. Am I allowed to, like, I'm interested to know more about New York and you living in New York. Am I allowed to just, like, ask now? Like, do I have to, like, continue to follow the template or. This is a thoroughly encouraged to make it your own.

[03:16] MATTHEW MULHELM: I'm going to keep throwing things in here. Either if you spent too long on something else and you want to move on, but even if I start putting new other stuff in there, you can.

[03:24] CALE GREEN: Go back and ask an earlier one.

[03:25] MATTHEW MULHELM: That you'd kind of skipped, but likewise, you can put off asking the next.

[03:30] CALE GREEN: One I've put out as long as you want to.

[03:32] MATTHEW MULHELM: I want to keep the conversation moving, but I don't really care what direction it goes in. That's totally up to you guys.

[03:38] CALE GREEN: Can you tell me, Matthew, a little bit, like, when you first. Cause I don't know where you grew up either. And now, for some reason, in my head, I was like, oh, you must have been, like, from Alaska too. Were you raised in Alaska? Did you live in New York for, like, where were you? Like, how did that work? Where did this all start?

[03:57] MATTHEW MULHELM: Sure. The short version. I was born in Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania. I moved to Portland, Oregon, when I was 18 years old, and then I moved to Anchorage, Alaska, when I was 31. My partner got into grad school at Columbia University for the School of Public Health in 2015. So I would have been 33 or something like that. Yeah, 33. I can math. And so for the first year that she was in grad school, I lived in Alaska, and she lived in Manhattan, going to school and then for her second year of university, which would have been 2016, 2017, I was living in Manhattan with her in Washington Heights. Cool. Yeah. Have you been in Alaska this entire time?

[04:54] CALE GREEN: I grew up in Alaska, but I've left for, you know, I left for college. I actually, before the pandemic started, I was living in an rv, and I was planning to be on the road for, like, two years. And then the pandemic started, and I realized that at the time I was 29. It seemed pretty irresponsible, without knowing anything about the pandemic, to be, like, in your twenties when everyone's like, oh, it doesn't really affect, like, people who are younger. Felt pretty responsible to just, like, travel from small community to small community, going around hiking to make videos. So I ended up coming back up to Alaska to try to be, you know, less selfish, kind of seeing where the pandemic is now. I was like, oh, I think knowing what I knew now, and in hindsight, I was like, I could have taken enough measures to be safe, but I think it was better to be safe than sorry, but it was. I haven't been to New York except for, like, through the airport and, like, sleeping in a hotel for the evening. So it's always interesting, you know, folks who have had more experience on the east coast, and I'm always fascinated, you know, especially with people who've started on the east coast, like, how they made it to Alaska.

[05:53] MATTHEW MULHELM: Yeah. Yeah, that's. I mean, that's definitely a part of my story, too. You know, my. I met my wife there, and she brought me up to Alaska. So, yeah, I feel like living in New York is an experience that before you live there, you're not, like, you're not the same after you do it. If you spend any significant time there for so many different reasons, it just makes you change and have all of these experiences that you would never have. Good, bad. I mean, for some people, it can be mostly good. For some people can be mostly bad. For some people, it's just a mixed bag. Me. For me, I would say it was a mixed bag, but it was. There's. I've lived around, like, I spent nine months living in California in the middle of the time that I was living in Oregon, and I lived in a town of 333 people. So, like, I. I've had these other unique living experiences, but nothing compares to living in New York City. Yeah. Yeah.

[06:53] CALE GREEN: And really quick, Drew, are you. Are you on video now to be prompt, or. Drew, do you. Do you have something that. That you want us to.

[07:01] MATTHEW MULHELM: Yeah, if you pull up the. If you pull up the chat again, I dropped Matt's bio in there, so if you'd read that off as if you were Matthew and then ask him a question about it.

[07:12] CALE GREEN: Okay, let me just pretend like my eyes are normal. I was born intersex in the eighties to parents that were not educated medically. I do not know what was done to me, what they knew or understood, et cetera. I was assigned and half heartedly raised female. Despite my constant protesting. 15. I chose to move out to avoid their increasing alignment with white supremacy ideals and fearing for my safety as a queer person. At age 17, I began living full time as male. And 20 plus years later, I have not looked back on either of these choices. Now, I mean, in comparison to my bio, yours sounds like. Like, very, very different and, like, especially. And I. It's super interesting. I totally. I do have a question because I have not talked to anyone in my life before, who was born intersex, that I knew. Right. Because I'm sure that's something that I have done before. Maybe I didn't consciously realize it, and, or maybe Alaska doesn't have the widest scope as far as, like, diversity in that way, but when you were 15 and you chose to move out, what was, like, the final, like, thing that did that for you? What was the final thing that made you realize that you were, like, done?

[08:37] MATTHEW MULHELM: There's. There's a two prong answer to this, and I'll try to keep it as brief as I can. So the precipitating event, like, if I can describe an event that happened, is that really. My father found a journal that I had had for school, like an english project. And in that journal, there were some disclosures of, at the time, what would have been homosexual activity. There was some descriptions of things that were going on in my home that. I don't allude to it. I state it, that my parents were sort of white separatists growing up, and that as I was growing up and as I got older, they really leaned into more of a supremacy type of vibe. And I did not agree with anything they were trying to teach me in terms of racism or sexism or anti immigration or. I mean, I could just go on and on and on. Everything that related to that communities that they were a part of and were trying to bring me up in were just. There was no way that I was going to continue with that. And so for my parents, the issue was two prong. One, that I was queer, and none of the intersex stuff had been discussed at this time. I mean, I think thats really important is that I'd never had the opportunity to talk to my parents about being intersex. I know now that they knew, but that was never discussed in my house. So the issue of me being queer, in hindsight, is so interesting to me because we never talked about the intersex part of it in the conversation at the table. So what happened was my mom called me, told me there was a family emergency, and I walked in the front door, and they were holding my journal. And my dad was like, you're gonna explain this entry. You're gonna explain this. You know, why are you sharing our secrets? Basically? I mean, I'm putting words in his mouth. But like that, I put us on blast for being racist because my teacher would have read this. It was like a writing assignment. So they gave me the option of going to what is called reparative therapy. And this is sort of the, what I colloquially call prey the gay away. You know, they send you to camp, and they do some pretty terrible things to reprogram you. And they gave me the choice of going to reparative therapy or leaving their house. And so I was like, I'm not going to reparative therapy. And so I came home one day after school with three of my friends with pickup trucks. It was a few months later, we loaded all my stuff in, and I was gone. So at the time, the issue was really focused on my sexual orientation, but for me, it was the fear that I had of what was happening next. As I was seeing my parents really slide into, like, radical extreme conservatism, or what I would describe as extreme conservatism. And that, I mean, they very much identified with being on the right. And so that was, like, I went as far from that as I could. So that's. That's. Yeah, totally.

[11:56] CALE GREEN: Can I. Can I ask a follow up question to that? Um, I am. I'm curious, actually, about two different pieces of this one. Like, how would you, um, in, like, more specific, like, what were the things that they were saying? Like, what type of, like, supremacy, uh, ideology or beliefs or, like, specifics. Like, what were the things that really, like, caught your attention and made you realize, like, oh, like, for you, like, this is not a healthy place. This is not what I want to be. This is not what I want to be ingesting from the people that are supposed to be, like, giving me these lessons.

[12:31] MATTHEW MULHELM: I think, you know, they were. I mean, they were in. So there were two things happening in my house, right? Like, or not two things happening in my life. I knew how to behave in my house and the conversations we could have in my house and the way I could speak in my house. And, you know, if I was in public, I wouldn't use the term black or african American. If I was at home, I was going to use language that is not appropriate to be saying out loud whatsoever.

[12:56] CALE GREEN: Got it. Okay.

[12:58] MATTHEW MULHELM: My father used to. We used to, like, take road trips, and he would take me, and sometimes we just, like, go and get chicken in Indiana. I mean, just, like, silly. Kind of like, go for a drive, go to a restaurant that you want to check out, come back. And when I was, I want to say about 13, the awakening really happened where he and I drove to somewhere in Maryland, and I was put on a playground with a bunch of other kids. And all of these kids, all of our parents were having some sort of meeting. I don't know what it was or what it was about. But through conversations with my peers, I had figured out that their parent, at least one of the kids parents, was straight up involved in the KKK and was asking me questions about our involvement and who we were affiliated with and. And all of that. And I I didn't realize this was happening. So that was like, that was just another moment of. Of that, um. I mean, language in the house was. It was homophobic, it was racist. It's all the dirty, ugly things that you would hear. It's, you know, um, there might be a story on tv about somebody from a certain country committing a crime, and then it was, you know, all people from that country are criminals or rapists. That was a huge one, is that I needed to avoid anybody who was of certain races because they were all rapists. You know, it is a lot of the rhetoric we've been hearing out loud that was not allowed to say 25 years ago, and now people are saying it out loud publicly. It blows my mind. So it was a lot of stuff that fear that I have fear about now. Like, it's bringing it all back for me, too. Like, hearing public, you know, politicians and things, say things that, like, my parents would tell me, we can't say that out loud. We only say that at home and with our. With our people. You know, kind of was. It wasn't overt. It wasn't like they taught me the rules. I just knew the rules through socialization.

[14:55] CALE GREEN: That sounds pretty overt.

[14:57] MATTHEW MULHELM: Yeah.

[14:59] CALE GREEN: Yeah.

[14:59] MATTHEW MULHELM: I guess it ran the gamut. And also, when you're in it, it seems totally normal. And then in hindsight, maybe. Maybe it wasn't as bad as I'm remembering it, but in hindsight, I mean, it definitely. I can pick all of those memories and just, those are my memories. The memories in between are not so much there anymore.

[15:15] CALE GREEN: So these same people, and this actually is so interesting, like, the type of communication you got from your parents when it came to either these overt or more subtle type of cues, especially when it came to language and the type of rhetoric that they were comfortable using and subsequently, the type of attitude that you're supposed to have toward people. But what I'm really interested in as a follow up up is, how did they not tell you? Like, they seem like they were totally fine communicating one aspect of maybe, like, the human experience, whether it be negative. But how did they not tell you that you were, like, intersex? Like, how did that just, like, slip the conversation?

[15:56] MATTHEW MULHELM: So I've never gotten to have a direct conversation with him about it. My father, when I was 19, is when I discovered that I was intersex, or the medical stuff started coming up that eventually led to the intersex diagnosis. And I was occasionally on speaking terms with my father at that time. And I asked him directly about it. I said, what happened when I was born? And he said, we're not talking about it. And I said, I'm asking you. I need you to tell me. This is my medical history. I need to know. And he said, we are not talking about it. And so if you, you know, that's a common experience for intersex folks, especially intersex kids that are born in the eighties and behind, because the doctors were told not to tell us that it was very important for my parents to lean into the assigned gender and to raise me and never tell me what had happened to me, that there are many folks who don't find out, like, until they try to have kids, and then they find out. And so that's, I can't speak for them. I won't speak for them, but I can speculate that that was most likely the scenario at that time. And I said in my introduction, you know, they were under educated. They, they may not have even really fully understood what the, if the doctors were telling them something, you know, I don't necessarily know that they would have fully comprehended. Or the doctor said, you know, it could have been something as simple as the doctor said, hey, we have a congenital anomaly. We need to fix it. We're going to go, you know, take your kid into surgery. And then my parents maybe didn't even really know fully what happened to me. That's totally possible and normal and a story that you will hear from other intersex folks time and time again.

[17:46] CALE GREEN: So that's got to be, like, three to five times more, like, shattering as a thing to learn than like, oh, you were adopted and we never told you. Like, that's got to just, like, blow you away, especially with what you're describing is like, I mean, the, the fact that they wouldn't even have a discussion with you about your own self, I guess it's kind of crazy.

[18:10] MATTHEW MULHELM: Yeah, definitely. You know, I don't want to compare myself to other people's experiences, for sure, because I think, like, I think we all experience our own crap the way that we experience it and that it's all relative to our own experience. And so, like, yeah, I mean, my experience was definitely one, but now I sit here, like, telling my story to a stranger, you know, that to me is, like, a powerful or a way to try to start taking it back. Like, I. I think the other thing I should have said of why I did this was that I don't talk about this with anybody ever. Like, there are maybe five people in my life that know fully what is going on with me. And then there's a handful of people that know that I transitioned. And, you know, I have. I have experiences, like, as a transgender person, basically because of how I had to get back to being male. So that. That is like. And then most people in my life just think I'm a really short, hairlesse dude, and, you know, they don't. I'm in the realm of rel. You know, I'm feminine looking ish on the scale of, like, I look like I'm male, but I look like a 17 year old boy to most people, too.

[19:23] CALE GREEN: So how tall are you?

[19:26] MATTHEW MULHELM: Five foot one.

[19:27] CALE GREEN: Wow. I would not guess that from just sitting across digitally from you.

[19:31] MATTHEW MULHELM: Thank you. My parents are actually five one and five two. My sister's 410. So, like, I'm in the realm of normal in terms of, like, my family, totally normal height wise, anyway.

[19:42] CALE GREEN: Yeah, yeah, yeah. So I.

[19:45] MATTHEW MULHELM: This has been just awesome so far. And Cale you're doing a great job of interviewing Matthew. And Matthew, you're doing an incredible job of being an interviewee.

[19:54] CALE GREEN: But I also want to give Matthew.

[19:56] MATTHEW MULHELM: A chance to ask Kayl some questions and learn a little bit about Cale So I put Kale's bio in the chat there. And, yeah, you're certainly welcome to circle back around to any of this stuff. And like I said, it's been awesome.

[20:09] CALE GREEN: But want to, you know, make sure, do my facilitator role and make sure things are sort of even handed here.

[20:15] MATTHEW MULHELM: Sure. All right. I was born in Cleveland and moved to Alaska before I was one. My parents divorced at a young age, but I was fortunate to have two homes with loving parents. I grew up with. My time split between Eagle river and South Anchorage, going outside to go hunting, fishing, and snowshoeing, or snowshoeing was a near weekly activity both for enjoyment and subsistence. I left the state to live in other places a handful of times, including when I left for college and started my education in Arizona. I started at UAA with a degree in political science, or I finished at UAA with a degree in political science. I have used that degree while working on political campaigns here in Alaska. I now operate my own multimedia content creation and consulting firm, and I have been mostly self employed since 2015. I still love getting outdoors, whether that's hiking, biking, rafting, or hunting and enjoying all that our great state has to offer. Alaska is my home, and it always will be. I have a lot of questions for you, too, actually. So my first one would be, what is a multimedia content creation and consulting firm?

[21:31] CALE GREEN: Yeah, that's a good question. It's kind of like the umbrella, like, catch all that I tried to. So sometimes I'll create, you know, digital content distribution strategies for people, or I'll create videos. The most recent one that I ended up working on was I did a seven week long project making a documentary covering ANCSA. So the Alaska Native Claims Settlement act, at 50 years old, had to fly DC, Barrow, and Juneau, and all across the country and mostly the state to be able to talk with people who had been part of a bill passage 50 years ago. But it's, what I do is, like, so varied from year to year, but it's still, like, the same. Like, it's still all within the same. Like, I create stuff for people. I mean, I got my degree with political science, but I was really interested in the philosophy portion of political science and especially the rhetorical appeals. And so for me, this just became, like, a natural thing to, like, I wanted to help. I wanted to be able to better communicate and where we are in the world, that's communication through audio, communication through video. Like, all of this stuff is, I help other people analyzing the audiences that they want, analyzing what they're trying to say, and then helping them say it in the way that's most effective to the people. So that's. It's kind of like a catch all to say what I do.

[22:52] MATTHEW MULHELM: Right on the. I mean, I think I had, like, a general idea, but I wanted to hear it from you to just have an idea of what it meant to you. I think I am incredibly curious about the political campaigns that you've worked on. Can you talk about any of the campaigns that you've worked on?

[23:10] CALE GREEN: Yeah. So if I end up working on campaigns going through this cycle, that'll be five cycles in a row that I've worked, which just means every two years I've worked on political campaigns, and last cycle that I worked, I ended up working on eleven different campaigns, and nine of those eleven campaigns ended up winning. So I've worked on campaigns from, usually every year I do multiple federal elections, or at least every two years. The most recent election that I had the ability to work on was actually the mayoral election, and I did something that I very rarely do, which I ended up managing a campaign because I hate campaign management. It's just. It is all consuming, and it takes every part of your. Your physical, your mental. And if. If there is the concept of a soul, if we all believe in the soul, like, it takes that, and it just sucks it right out of your freaking body. And I enjoy doing consulting. I enjoy helping people make videos. It's easier, it's less dramatic, and it's. It's. It's good pay for a short amount of work. But I did campaign management for someone I really believed, and I ended up helping out Bill Evans. He was running for mayor in the city of Anchorage, and he ended up doing. Not that well, but that's why campaign. And campaign management is absolutely a heartbreaking activity because I thought he was a great person who ended up running. And the only people I would usually manage campaign for are people that I would truly believe in, which means that you switch from being a mercenary to being a zealot. And as soon as you're a zealot, you're geared for heartbreak. As soon as you stay as a mercenary, you don't need to worry about it. And you can just pick things from the beginning and think, okay, if I pick these, I believe in them, but I don't need to be as emotionally invested, which means the loss isn't bad.

[25:07] MATTHEW MULHELM: Gotcha. Yeah, that was gonna be. My next question was, do you only work for campaigns or for people that you believe in and that, you know.

[25:15] CALE GREEN: Sometimes I would say I. It's kind of a hard thing with, like, political, because I. No one. No one agrees with me 100% of the time, and I don't even agree with myself 100% of the time. And so it's really difficult to say, like, I believe in someone, or I don't believe in someone, because I think it's all on, like, a, like, art scale, like, a continuum of, you know, I don't believe in anything that you say to, you know, I'm me on a good day, and as long as I believe in someone, you know, like, 55, 60%, that's kind of the litmus test of whether I could work with them or not. If I don't believe in a majority of their ideas, I can't help them. So I have to at least agree with a large portion of those things.

[26:00] MATTHEW MULHELM: Gotcha. That's a good question. I'm scanning your bio to make sure I'm not missing anything that I wanted to touch on. So give me a second. I might come back to the whole, like, I am fascinated by people who grow up in, like, nuclear families. And you don't have a nuclear family, but in a way, you have, like, double nuclear family, based on your description. So that. That I think we could probably. I don't have a good question. I think I would just at some point in a fantasy, I would, like, love to pick your brain about what it's like to grow up in a functional, you know, household. But I don't know if you want to say anything about that.

[26:42] CALE GREEN: Well, I can, uh. I can talk. Yeah, I can kind of. I've thought a lot about the idea of kind of the way that I was raised with divorced parents from a very early age, because, like, I think it's probably, at least in my experience, and talking with other people, it's, like, a very common thing, those first few, like, birthdays, to, like, think that you could, like, liar, liar, like, birthday wish, like, you know, like, get your parents back together, and, like, the first few birthdays are like that when you're really young, and then after a while, you, you know, you realize that it's fine. And that, you know, I grew up in the nineties, and so it was, like, exceptionally fine then, like, it was definitely, like, a very common thing for divorced households. But I kind of think. And again, this is because I did my political science degree when I was, like, doing the political philosophy courses. I got, like, really, like, like, way into it. And I remember when I was reading Machiavelli, I got obsessed with the idea that Machiavelli is the prince. And the rules that Machiavelli put out for, like, ruling provinces and, like, taking over provinces was, like, exactly the same things that people should know for being a step parent. Because, like, the lessons were, like, absolutely the same. It was like, if you come in and you rule with an iron fist, you're gonna lose control because the people won't respect you. But if you comment, it's like, there's all these things where I was like, oh, my God, this is exactly like how this step parent did it, or this is how this parent positioned themselves.

[28:05] MATTHEW MULHELM: And it's.

[28:06] CALE GREEN: It was interesting being able to observe, you know, two different versions of love, because I think most people go through either seeing a dysfunctional relationship or what they model potentially their own idea of love off of and what their relationship should be. And so I got to see, you know, double that in my daily life to see, like, oh, this is how this parent and this parent love each other. This is how this parent and this parent love each other. And so it was nice to be able to see that and see how the different styles of communication worked, whereas I think some other people I know who maybe their households were dysfunctional, but their parents stayed together and they stayed married despite maybe nothing being good together. Like, you know, I think I have a much more realistic expectation of, like, hey, things aren't working out. Like, this is toxic. Maybe we shouldn't do this anymore.

[28:59] MATTHEW MULHELM: Yeah. Yeah. The, like, relationship modeling that can then happen, you know, being taught that, like, people can separate and still be, you know, civil with each other for the sake, not even just for the sake of the kid, but, you know, in a lot of cases, at the very least, for the sake of the kid, you know? And. And that was not something that I ever saw. My parents should have gotten divorced and would have if they weren't catholic. I mean, this was. This was a common theme in there, and, like, they just would tell us everything that they hated about each other, but they were married in the Catholic Church, and so that was. That was done. They did not get to change anything in this lifetime. And so that, like, you know, just kind of blows my mind when I. I think about what my life could have been like had they been separated, you know? Like, that's the fantasy for me, where the divorced kid is always thinking about, how can he get his parents back? I spent my childhood wondering, like, if they would just get divorced, how much better my life could possibly maybe be. And my siblings. I have two older siblings who. My sister got it worse than I did. You know, I mean, she's got her own story, but, you know, that, to me, I really just wonder how better her life could have been had she not had to deal with what they did to her as well. Yeah. So. Oh, sorry. Go ahead.

[30:23] CALE GREEN: No, no. I was kind of thinking, because I wanted to go back, it was. I didn't want to talk about this one until. Because you had mentioned when you were 13, you had this kind of, like, transformative experience, and I didn't want to talk about this one until we had gone into my bio because I. I just thought it was so interesting that you had kind of, like, an experience and an epiphany at that age because. And I didn't want to talk about this until we had kind of, like, read that and seen. Because I did hunting, and I grew up doing a lot of hunting, and I do hunting now, but around 13, in the same type of transformative, like, looking at your pet, like, life, looking at these, like, moments, I was like, okay, I like, you know, hit puberty. Is this the person that I want to be? You know, like, you're starting to examine at least some of those traditions. And one of the ones that was interesting around the same time frame is my dad. My brother and I. We were over visiting my, I think, aunt and uncle's property over in Idaho, and some, like, middle of nowhere, like, no one's ever heard of it. Idaho. And they had this very, very big farm, and we just spent all day going around shooting groundhogs that were ruining the farm and everything like that. And then my dad sees a rabbit on the hill, and he shoots the rabbit. This is something I'd done, like, my entire life through, but he shoots the rabbit, and we go up to it. The rule is, you know, if you kill it, you eat it, because you're just supposed to. It's not right to just kill something without eating it. Except for ground squirrels. They're kind of gross. But we went up to the rabbit. He grabs it, and my. My dad is. He is very, very, very outdoorsy, and he raised me to be very outdoorsy as well. And he grabbed the rabbit by the bullet hole, and he just ripped the entire skin off like a sock. Like, he just ripped the whole thing off. Didn't use a knife, just ripped the flesh off the animal. And I'd, like, held it for a second, and I was feeling the heat leave its body, and I had a moment in the same, like, kind of transformative, like, is this the life that I want? Where I. Like, I stopped hunting for, like, two years after that because it was like. I was like, oh, yeah, that's. That's, like, not like I don't know if that's what I want to do. And it wasn't until I ended up killing a bear when I was 16 that I was like, oh, okay. I actually. There's, like, this kind of, like, oddly spiritual component that got me back into it, but it was like a re examination from, like, 13 to 16 until I finally. But I thought it was interesting you had something around the same time with the realization of your own parents traditions, but how you diverted away, whereas mine, I ended up bouncing away and then coming back into it.

[32:46] MATTHEW MULHELM: Yeah, that is. That is very interesting to note. I hesitate to admit this in a public forum, but around the same age was when I learned that meat came from animals and they had to die. Like, I had an idea that meat came from animals, but I really did not understand. I had never hunted. I had never seen an animal slaughtered. You know, my world was chicken nuggets in a box and. And not. And not even having cuts of meat that you could tell, like, some cuts of meat, you know, you can tell that they came from. From an animal, or if you get a chicken, a chicken carcass. I mean, all the parts are there. Rabbit, same thing. You know, you can see that that was a living thing. And I went vegetarian and then vegan for, I don't know, like, eight or nine years, and then eventually was like, I really want to. Bacon cheeseburger. I was dreaming about bacon cheeseburgers and went the next day to a McMinnamin's in Portland, Oregon. They have an amazing bacon cheeseburger, and I had a bacon cheeseburger. And I have not been vegetarian or vegan since then, but I have hunted since then and have learned to be around guns and have learned about hunting culture. I have fished, and that's essentially the only animals that I have killed. I have not ever shot anything. I have gone hunting, but we were unsuccessful. I am unlucky people won't take me hunting now because nothing comes along when I go. I'm hoping to remedy that at some point in the future, but so that same age and also just such a similar experience, but going such a different being on opposite sides of this way that we were raised. You were raised with this all the time. I was raised with it. Never. And so to discover it at that age was transformative.

[34:37] CALE GREEN: Yeah. Yeah, it looks. It looks like another one is. Drew has now popped two questions, and I feel like we're missing out on prompter. Drew up in the corner.

[34:46] MATTHEW MULHELM: We're misbehaving. I'm sorry. You guys continue to do just absolutely, fantastically. My only concern is that we're now a little over halfway through, and we haven't really talked about political values at all. So I went ahead and threw that one up there. I do really love the influential person in your life question. So you guys are welcome to hit that one. I just want to make you conscious.

[35:07] CALE GREEN: That part of the goal is to.

[35:09] MATTHEW MULHELM: Hit upon some political type discussion, and so you could also just jump right to that now.

[35:17] CALE GREEN: So I really want to know about the influential person in your life, though. Can you tell me who has been a very influential person in your life? What is something they taught you?

[35:27] MATTHEW MULHELM: My grandmother, my mother's mother, is, without a doubt, the most influential person in my life. My childhood was tumultuous. If you can't have pulled that out yet. The first time I ran away from home, I was probably five or six years old, and my grandmother lived about a mile away, and I walked to her house and showed up on her. She lived in an apartment building, and she knew. She knew without knowing. She never said a word that day. It was just like, what are you doing here? How'd you get here? But it was never like, I got to call your mom or your dad or anything. She just welcomed me in, and that became a pattern. When things would get really bad, I would just go stay with her. And it was always a. There was no reason for it. Like, I didn't have to say, like, oh, I got beat again, or, oh, you know, this is this or that is happening or whatever. I could just need a break and go live with her. When I got kicked out, moved out, I actually. I moved into my own apartment, and then I lost that apartment. I was 16 by then, and I was evicted from it. The landlord didn't know that I was staying there, and so he evicted all of us, and I went to live with my grandmother for about a, I don't know, maybe a year. That time gets fuzzy. And it was, like, under the auspice that she needed some help. She had some medical stuff going on. I think she might have had cataract surgery. And I came to take care of her. And so after I got kicked out, she and I had dinner, like, I was maybe two years after, and I was starting to tell her a little bit about what was going on in my home and why I left. Like, that conversation was finally happening, and she, like, took my hand across the table and said, I am so sorry I gave birth to that woman. That is not the child that I wanted to raise. That is not my child. And then she kind of pauses, and then she looks at me, and she's, like, getting all over Klempt in this moment. And she was like, no, I'm actually glad I gave birth to her, but if I hadn't given birth to her, I wouldn't have you. And so my grandmother and I have always. I was the favorite grandchild. She will, if you ask my cousins or my siblings who was the favorite grandchild, they will all say, me. I was the one that was always there for her. We just have a special relationship. And when I finally. So I was still female at this time, I mean, I was starting to live in my real. I was starting to live with my friends and sort of in a chosen identity and starting to really transition. I had started to change. I had changed my name, like, socially. And when I finally called my grandmother and told her that, like, I was transitioning, I'm changing my name. You know, this is my new name. She's like, oh, that makes a lot of sense. And it was just never a question. I got a birthday card from her two weeks later that said to my grandson. And so I think what my grandmother, I believe what my grandmother taught me was a form of radical acceptance while still being very conservative. Like, she is my model of not all conservatives are bad, and my model of not all religious people are bad because I really lean in that direction. And a lot of my thinking because of my life experiences, you know, I associate a lot of hate coming from people who identify as conservative and people who identify as religious. And obviously, there's a huge overlap there, but not always. So, yeah.

[39:11] CALE GREEN: When you first told your grandma this new identity, was Matthew the first draft, or was there another name?

[39:20] MATTHEW MULHELM: So there have been stories in my family, like, there's a couple, just quick versions. I was told that I had been. I was born and I was in the hospital for two weeks, and I was in an incubator, and there was a problem. At one point, my parent, my mom told me that, and this is the closest we get to talking about me being intersex. She said, you know, they told us you were going to be a boy, and we were very surprised when you came out. And when you were born, Matthew William was hanging above your head crib. So that was the name I took, the name that my parents had intended to give me, and it always felt right. I actually went by Maddie at one point, long before I ever became Matthew. So I. And I. I mean, by the time I was three, four, five years old, like, I had a very strong male identity, masculine identity. Like, there was no question that they chose wrong when they fixed my congenital, you know, issue. So when she asked me what my, you know, she was like, oh, I told her I changed my name, and she said, what did you change it to? And I said, matthew William. And she said something like, oh, my heart, you know, because she knew that that was William was my grandfather, her husband. So it was. It was just. It was the name that was meant to be. There was no question that that was my name. And I am. At the time, I was going by the nickname Mando. Mando. And I almost changed my name to that. And I just, every day, thank God that I did not change my name to Mando.

[40:53] CALE GREEN: I mean, it's, like, pretty on the nose, right?

[40:56] MATTHEW MULHELM: Yeah, it's not great. It is. I guess we should jump into the political values.

[41:05] CALE GREEN: Right.

[41:05] MATTHEW MULHELM: So I'm going to ask you the question now.

[41:07] CALE GREEN: Okay.

[41:09] MATTHEW MULHELM: Could you briefly describe in your own words youre personal political values?

[41:13] CALE GREEN: Yeah, I would describe, so I'm registered Republican. I would describe myself as being in the kind of, you know, center right, but more libertarian. I would just define myself as more of a libertarian leaning Republican. If there's three legs of the republican party, whether it be, you know, kind of like right now, evangelical social conservatives, then you've got, like, the establishment money folks and Republicans, and then you have this, like, libertarian faction that, like, maybe the other two party, like, parts of the party, like, don't enjoy. Like, I usually fall into that category of, like, trying to maximize individual liberty in whatever, you know, way. And I, I know that's, like, one of these terms that probably gets used incorrectly. But, like, you know, I, probably the best way to describe it would be, like classic liberal, like liberalism thought, like, as taught in academia, like that type of libertarian. Could you briefly describe in your words your personal political values?

[42:16] MATTHEW MULHELM: I don't want to because the language, I hate all of it. And I would say that if politics were a line, I would be as far left as still allows for, like, personal freedoms, so long as they don't infringe on other people. I think that's really my line is that in a lot of ways I sound like a libertarian. And it's really interesting if we think of political identity as, like, a circle and you've got, like, conservative or you've got liberal and, you know, or Democrat and Republican, let's say, you know, on the top and the bottom of this circle, there's this point where, like, things come back together, you know, like where we meet on the sides of things. And I feel like I occupy a lot of that space. Like, I want hunting rights. You know, I don't want to abolish guns in the way that somebody might stereotype a far left liberal. You know, I don't want to take all the guns out of homes, but I do maybe want to take some of them out of the home. So I would describe, if I have to use the language that is of today, I would probably describe myself as a democratic socialist. And can I say with that, that I like almost nothing about Bernie Sanders? So it puts me in this really weird place. I vote Democrat. I've been, I've been, when I originally registered at 18, I was a registered Republican, and I still identified with that. You know, I was having a hard time politically getting away from my parents in some ways. And, you know, I've been a Republican. I've been a libertarian. I've been, I think I'm registered other now, actually, or whatever the other is for Alaska. But I think it's most, it's almost easier for me to, like, ask me a political topic and I'll tell you where I fall on it because it's not necessarily all going to fall, fall on the left. I surprise myself sometimes when I realize what I'm saying is something that a conservative would also agree with. So I love talking to people that allow me to see where that overlap between, like, liberal and conservative supposedly is, you know.

[44:40] CALE GREEN: Yeah, yeah. It's an interesting place where we are today in terms of politics because so many issues have kind of bled into the space where I feel like it feels binary. And I'm, I'm sure some of that has to do with kind of the presentation of individual realities, what you had talked about earlier with, like, and I don't know if this was when we were off camera or not, when it's like, oh, you haven't gotten out as much, and so you find that your social circles end up being similar. But I think everyone, of course, is, like, getting that, like, online all the time, every day, when it's like their news sources are constantly validating their own beliefs. And I'm sure that's created this binary choice because how could you not believe what I believe? Because if you don't believe, I believe you. You must be want to kill people. Because I want to save people. You must want to give all your money away. Because I don't want to give all my money away. Like, everything is like this one or the other. So, like, totally. And I I think it's really hard to want to answer that. And I I think it's, uh, been an interesting thing for me to retain my, uh, republican status because I see so many people in the country moving away from what it feels right now. They're moving away from the partisan model. Like, like, so many people are, like, changing their registration, even though they're getting more frustrated than ever. They're still changing to undeclared, changing to non partisan or independent in the rest of the country. But I I'm not sure if that's, you know, something that's continuing in a direction or this is a pendulum swing that goes back and forth. And my belief is that if you don't think that something's good, like, you know, I've been a registered Republican since 2013, and if I don't think the Republican Party is as good as I want it to be, leaving would be giving up on. If we have a two party system, leaving would be giving up on the system for me. And so it's easier to stay and try to push for the direction that I want or maybe, you know, for. I would say, if anything, for the inclusion, because I feel like at least the Republican Party that I was always told and sold was being financially prudent and having a big, inclusive tent. And I'm not sure that's always the direction that they're heading in now.

[46:53] MATTHEW MULHELM: Yeah. I mean, when I think of the issues that are really important to me, like who I am as a human being and because of my life experiences, almost none of that would allow me to be a Republican because of the way that I have received or related, you know, with, with people who identify as Republicans and how I, how I see politicians and whatever, like voting for things and things like, you know, marriage equality. Right. Like, the Republican Party was never publicly going to support that. They might individually say, okay, that's, you know, whatever, and they have people in their lives who are queer or homosexual and they go to their weddings, but they wouldn't vote in that way. And so that's the, like, stereotype that I have. I mean, I picked one issue, we could pick any issue and, or many other issues that it's, I hear this from people who identify as Republicans that I've heard versions of this fiscally conservative and then, you know, as a wide net as possible. But it often seems like that net has, like, cis had white male shapes. And when you drag it, you know, it's only really grabbing those individuals and you're leaving behind, you know, kind of everybody else in that net. So I think in practice, I talk to individuals like you and like, I see that's not how it is. But then somehow when the party gets together, that's the result. And it just, like the. I wanna talk about the disconnect and, you know, how, how, like, I almost want to ask you, how can you say it's the party of inclusion when you, you know what I'm getting at? Sort of. But I know we're not here to have a political bait, but, but yet there's like, I'm fascinated to understand. I want to understand. I really genuinely do.

[48:38] CALE GREEN: Yeah, I would. I would say that if you want to know where the disconnect is, I can show you. And it starts with going to a local district and or statewide republican party meeting and hearing the ideology that they're talking about. The people that are motivated enough to be able to go to a series of meetings in order to be part of the party structure versus the exit polling and the average person who would vote as republican. And I think that similar to a lot of organizations and especially political institutions, what happens at the top level, the people that are willing to be the biggest zealots and biggest advocates are not necessarily what the majority of people are interested in. But you end up continually saying, okay, this is what I'm interested in because I believe in this one shared thing. And if that's the party that's saying, oh, I believe in that one shared thing, that's the direction that you end up heading. But like, you know, clearly in the state of Alaska history or actually even nationally, you know, Republican Party right now, saying that they're for smaller budgets feels like a bad, tired joke. You know, at least in my, my, you know, again, leaning libertarian where both of the other pieces of the party this dislike that kind of general view. I don't think I've seen deficits go down. I don't think I've seen, you know, debt go down under Republicans. In fact, in many ways, it's, it's, you know, spiked. You know, it's just which programs you allocate money toward. But it looks like with the warning that there's like less than ten minutes left now, what's the most pressing political issue facing Alaska today and what should we do about it?

[50:13] MATTHEW MULHELM: Oh, my gosh, I'm so Anchorage focused. Like, I'm a social worker. I work in behavioral health. I'm a behavioral health provider. I did 20 years of social work and now I'm doing behavioral health. And so, so much that immediately comes to my mind is problems about, I don't even know how, like, I'm not very good at articulating this idea, but the amount of people who are really destitute and how we treat them. And so, like, I spent a lot of time going to the Sullivan arena when, you know, when the shelter first opened and kind of saw how that was run. And it seems like people do a lot of, I think the biggest issue in Alaska, if I can summarize it, is that we're really good at articulating what the problems are and then we're really great about fighting how to solve them and nothing ever happens. And that's not, as I say that out loud. That's not an Alaska problem. That's like, seems to be a universal problem right now. I think the, the other, oh, crap. I lost my train of thought. I'm sorry.

[51:28] CALE GREEN: Well, no, no. I'm interested to hear a little bit more about what you think as a social worker, as someone who, you know, if you're focused on Anchorage politics, that's fine, because I think there's a lot of things happening, especially right now in Anchorage. And I'm curious, with that experience as a social worker, what you think the solution is to persons, people living with homelessness or experiencing homelessness. And, you know, I'm at least assuming that's kind of the, you know, talking about destitute people. That's the cast and group that you're really talking about, because clearly in Anchorage, we have an issue with that. I think that the last mayoral campaign was dominated by it, and I had done a campaign in 2015, it was dominated then by it, too. And I'd be curious to hear what you think about that issue.

[52:10] MATTHEW MULHELM: So, I mean, the biggest thing, the first and foremost, if you want to solve homelessness, if you want to solve addiction issues, if you want to solve a lot of those very visible blight kind of things that are happening, you got a little, you got to spend a little money to make a little money. And so what that looks like is housing first, done properly. And I say that because a lot of programs say that they do housing first. You know, they house people, but they warehouse people. You have to house people, and then you have to have wraparound services that continue to support those people. So in the long run, it is cheaper, way cheaper to do that. But you've got to put the money up, and you've got to be willing to invest in the time that it will take to get people dealing with the societal issues that brought them to homelessness. The idea that people choose homelessness because it's easy or fun or whatever is, is bullshit. I'm sorry, but it just is. That's not the reality. I've worked in. I've worked with in four homeless people for 21 years now. So there are, yeah, there are some people, say 3% of the people, 5% of the people that are taking advantage of the system. Should 95% of people be punished because some people are going to take advantage of the system. You give people, like, I'll even go as far as a universal basic income in terms of how to solve the problem for people because the blight problems are economic and they're societal. You know, it's providing. So housing first, free health care, you do those two things. You wrap around services for them, like that would solve the problem, but it costs money and it requires people to put money into the system that they feel like they're not getting anything back, but they are, because the blight is being taken care of and because their neighbor is now a functioning member of society that is beneficial to citizens of the city, but because they're not seeing it in terms of, like, I pay tax dollars and now I have a brand new truck. I don't have a thing. They want a thing to come with their tax dollars. And the thing is something you can't touch. It's solving the problems of blight or addiction or whatever. Whatever it is you want to, you want to call it.

[54:29] CALE GREEN: When you say housing first, are you talking turnkey individual homes or units for people? Are you talking about smaller areas in which people can congregate, like 6812 or. Cause you talked about being opposed to warehousing. So what does that number look like in an ideal situation?

[54:47] MATTHEW MULHELM: I mean, in my fantasy, I mean, you have to have a multi pronged. I mean, you've got to have housing that is specific to people with substance misuse so that they can have specific care for that. And you've got to allow those people to still use drugs while they're in their house. That's frightening to people, but that's how you do it. So we've got to do the harm reduction model. So housing first is a part of a greater harm reduction model, which is that how do we, you know, do less? How do we start to reduce the harm? We might not ever be able to get rid of it. Right. But if somebody is drinking a fifth every day and we get them to drink three beers every day, we've succeeded. Right? That's. That's harm reduction. So, um, yeah, I do mean putting people into, like, apartments where there are staff on site who can support them, and eventually moving up to housing that is free for people who can't afford it for whatever reason, and allowing and having a case manager, staff, therapists, whatever that individual's needs is substance, counselors addressed. And that's in the fantasy. That's kind of how it works. And we see this microcosm. We see it work in small ways when it's done properly, but it's never fleshed out into a fully fledged city doing this or a state really embracing being able to do this. Oregon is trying, but that's where you see influence. That kind of chips away at it. And you don't have the full program as powerful as it could be if those little things weren't chipped away. You can't chip away anything you've got to go. It's cannonball into harm reduction. It really, really is. It's a leap of faith.

[56:25] CALE GREEN: And do you think that a place like Alaska, with its electorate being shaped the way that it is, where I'd say the state is, it's a light red color and the city is pretty purple, just straight down the middle, depending on the issue. It's a electorate that can go kind of either way in some cases. Do you think that if a place like Oregon or California or Washington isn't able to achieve this, do you think that there's going to be the political will in Alaska or Anchorage to do it? Just, I mean, I'm curious where the fantasy, and I'm not trying to say it's a fantasy, it's impossible. I'm trying to say this ideal version of solving the problem for you, like, where that meshes with the political place in which we are and how that contrasts to the places that are also trying to do it, but maybe not hitting pay dirt there either, that have maybe more political will to exercise that in Anchorage?

[57:18] MATTHEW MULHELM: I was starting to have a little hope that we were getting somewhere when we had a blue mayor and we had a blue assembly where I thought, I really, you know, I don't, I. I'm not an optimist, but I was thinking, okay, if we have this for long enough, we might be able to actually pass some things and do and, like, solve that, the shelter problem that we have right now. Like, I was very optimistic that we were going to solve the shelter problem, and then unfortunately, our mayor had to resign and that, you know, resulted in the mayor that we have now. And there is. With what power he has. I don't, I don't even understand what is happening with the assembly and him and the fight for power. And I'm not political science background, and I do try to follow it as much as I can, but it seems like no way in Anchorage and in a state as large as Alaska. If it was, I mean, if it was a country, it'd be like, what, the 17th largest country in the world? No, we are going to have to do it at community to community level. And then I. For the major cities, we're gonna have to have some sort of magical coming together of, like, enough mayors in those cities who believe in it and enough, like, the local politics start to lean that way where all of these individual cities might be able to come together and then do something in the state. But it's a total fantasy. No way. All right. Cale what's the most pressing political issue facing Alaska today and what should we do about it?

[58:52] CALE GREEN: I think the most pressing political issue in Alaska is one that doesn't ever sound very sexy to voters, and it's one that probably used to be able to be something that we talked about more. But if there was an issue that I think posed the greatest opportunity to change the state of Alaska, change so many of the issues that we're facing today, I think we kind of need to take a step back and actually look at education. I think the way that we are currently educating kids with the k through twelve education system is no longer fitting in with what the country's expectations and needs are from its citizens moving forward. I think that one of the biggest advantages of school is this great homogenization that happens, the ability to get people to have shared beliefs, shared ideals. And in Alaska, I don't think we're taking advantage of that to the level that we should be. I think that there are education models outside of the United States that probably have the solutions that we're looking for. Not to say, you know, not to join the national conversation of, you know, cancel college debt or free community college. I think we already spending such a tremendous amount of money on that k through twelve. We should focus on the money that we're not getting actual value out of because we end up having one of the highest education costs in the entire world, and yet we're no longer seeing the delivery in that level of education. I think that we should adopt. If it were up to me, if I could wave a magic wand, I would change our education system to have more practical courses. I think that, you know, in anchorage or in Alaska, we end up taking a high school exit exam in 10th grade, which means that you learned everything that you needed to in the 10th grade to be able to leave high school. Everything after that is two years of college preparatory. And given that one college degrees are not as useful as people seem to think that they were, you know, 2030 years ago. But also because the majority of people don't need to, don't have to go to college for their job in any way, shape or form. It's just, it's a, it's a long liberal arts degree, which I hope people want to do for their own personal enjoyment, for leisure. But it's not necessary to enter the job market in the way that should be. I think, you know, after sophomore year, there should be more a vocation system where it's like, oh, I'd like to go to, like to learn to be a mechanic. Oh, I want to go to college preparatory. Like, whichever way you want to go. We can specialize and we can allow people to learn, but at the same time, part of the core education that goes forward is how to do your taxes. Personal finance lessons that I realized that, like, I learned through osmosis. I got really lucky in 6th grade, and I had a teacher teach us compound interest as it related to credit when I was in 6th grade, and it scared me so badly that I didn't get a credit card until I was 27 years old because I was so aware of how quickly compound interest could run away from you. But I realized that wasn't a universal experience. And, you know, while we ended up doing things like an Anchorage, in the Anchorage school district, like an economics course in which you had to, you know, quote, start a business, it wasn't actually useful if we taught someone, you know, oh, here's. Here's how quickly debt can get away from you. Here's how colleges are predatory. Here's how you. I don't want to say, like, balance a checkbook, because you don't balance a checkbook, but, like, realistic financial. I mean, like, I don't have a checkbook. I have a, you know, credit card thing. Right. But the same thing. I wish they were teaching practical things and. And just, like, one additive to that. I think we're missing a huge opportunity in Alaska. I wish we had part of our education dedicated to teaching kind of Alaska survival skills, because I think that so many kids are totally disadvantaged by the in classroom learning. And if there was a section where it's like, hey, this semester, you leave school, you go into the woods, you go with a teacher, you learn how to build fires. You learn how to do, like, all these things that are, like, more mechanically intuitive, like, survival. Like, everyone from Alaska, like, left the school system, and instead of, like, you know, half the stuff they forgot, like, I think reading Romeo and Juliet still has value, but, like, you know, if everyone knew how to start a fire, like, we would just look like a group of badasses. Like, oh, yeah, they're from Alaska. They all know how to start fires. They all know how to, like, you know, like, hide their stuff from bears. Like, I just think that we're missing out on this different way to explore both individuality and intellect by getting people into the natural world around them. And there's probably no better place than Alaska to be able to do that. I say that as, like, a small, tangential piece onto this. I just think that if we reformed education, we would have better critical thinking. If we had better critical thinking, we'd have a better population that was able to, you know, just talk about issues more willingly. And especially, I think that's like, it's like an immune response that our society needs to combat this. What we had talked about earlier with everyone getting individualized news streams, like, you have to be able to think critically to be able to shake yourself out of, oh, this is my only binary reality. And if we just teach people how to think critically, better, I think that would help. And so I think the number one issue is actually going back and focusing on education.

[01:04:00] MATTHEW MULHELM: I probably agree with 95% of what just came out of your mouth, and I wish we had a half an hour to, like, tease out the 5% that we don't because I think we could have a really great conversation there. Like, we could have a whole session just like, talking about education is very high on my list. Well, in fact, it's something that I sort of briefly was like, well, I don't really know how to talk about that. Like, I know it's messed up, but to me, it's messed up on a national level. I think that, you know, it's. We, yeah, we're not doing our kids service, but I think in Alaska, we could have a chance to do a lot of what you are saying, and there's a missed opportunity to provide a better outdoor education to our kids that are in the urban environments. I think the kids in the villages are probably doing all right. You know, subsistence is a lot, you know, most of the life out there, but. But for us in Anchorage especially, or any of the urban centers, yeah, kids can go their whole life with never seeing a gun in a good way, you know, or never. Never. Like, kids aren't allowed to play with knives. Like, I had a knife in my hand when I was three years old, you know, safely learning how to whittle or whatever. And, like, that stuff doesn't happen. So, you know, and the loss of losing a home ec was great because it was, like, gendered at the time for most part, but now instead of, like, instead of adding men to the home economics experience, we got rid of it because it was sexist. And I'm like, well, no, we all need to know how to fix a car. We all need to know how to cook our own dinner. We all need to know how to balance a checkbook or with the equivalent of that, we colloquially will say that, right? Or budget or what compound interest is, or for the love of God, mine. If we want to get back to education, how student loans work, because that, I think, is a part of the problem with the whole, you know, the student loan conversation right now is that just. Yeah, I feel for people. I'm included in that list.

[01:05:57] CALE GREEN: Do you have a bunch of student loans?

[01:05:59] MATTHEW MULHELM: Oh, I took out $52,000. So basically the max and I now owe $109,000 in student loans.

[01:06:08] CALE GREEN: That's the crazy part to me that I like. I wish this conversation nationally was changed, because I think where there's so much resistance, the idea is the forgiveness of student debt. But if Congress just changed that, what, 8% non defaultable number, and retroactively changed it, I bet you would have a large portion of people, including people on the right, saying, yeah, it shouldn't have been an 8% non defaultable loan. That's an insane amount. That is actually predatory. And getting an 18 year old to sign. Like, I didn't take college debt because I was afraid of debt. I purposely. I left Arizona and I was like, okay, I'm going back to UIA because I know I can afford UA. I paid my way largely through UIA because I was so afraid of debt. But it's like, you know, you probably made payments into your college debt and had it just not gone up or gone at the rate of inflation, it would be a reasonable number. It wouldn't be this insane thing. Like, I see no reason. Like, I'm not a huge fan of the idea of forgiving debt, but if we just retroactively change that number from 8% to match inflation, like, I bet a majority of people who are struggling with these mountains of debts would just kind of be out.

[01:07:15] MATTHEW MULHELM: Yeah, I have paid. I don't have an exact number for you, but I've paid somewhere in the magnitude of $20,000. And what I figured out was that it's just better for me to not pay it right now because something is going to change. Like, something is going to happen there. I have no doubt that we're going to do something about this because it is a national crisis now. Like, I can't buy a house. My partner and I can't buy a house because we're collectively, you know, have our student loan debt. That's just astronomical. It's more than the cost of a house between the two of us, so. Or a cheap house. Anyway. Yeah, I just. Yeah, we could do this one all day. It's just mind blowing to me that we're in this, that we're even in this position, and I had a loan officer at Wells Fargo say to me, you know, that you have to do this. This is the only way you're going to be able to get your degree, and you need a college degree. And I sit here now, I never graduated. I ran out of money. The loans weren't coming in anymore. And I thought that that was, you know, I had. I got a private loan, and that's where I went wrong, was that I got a private loan, and that one is 12%.

[01:08:25] CALE GREEN: Yeah. That's crazy.

[01:08:26] MATTHEW MULHELM: I didn't understand. I honestly did not understand what I was doing, and I didn't understand what I was going to owe. I didn't. There needs to be better debt education. I think it's happening more now, but I didn't have to fight. Figure out how much it was going to cost me to pay back. I was just told, when you graduate and you get a job, it'll pay that. And when I graduated, I got a job at Claudia Brothers, or when I left school, I got a job at Claudia Brothers. So, like, that's you. Yeah, that's, you know, not gonna work. Okay.

[01:08:54] CALE GREEN: I mean, I hope, just to summarize, like, I hope that there is something that changes on that, because, you know, I think that when we find that something is destructive in society, we hope to go and try to change that. In 2008, there were, like, no regulations on, like, doctors being able to prescribe, you know, opioids, and yet here we are today, and it's like, a very, very difficult.

[01:09:16] MATTHEW MULHELM: Yeah.

[01:09:16] CALE GREEN: It's like, we're like, hey, like, this is hurting people. We shouldn't let this. This go out so easily. We now have a bunch of people addicted, and they finally realize, okay, let's change the law on that. It's like, okay, there are clearly people struggling, people being hurt economically, their lives being ruined by this bad decision they made when they were 18. I say bad only because, again, I think there should be more debt education. It's just crazy that we haven't made the choice to change something, whether that is, you know, I know that the national popular push of debt forgiveness or, you know, I think the. Maybe more universally, you know, accepted, just like, retroactively changing all the terms of those contracts to be much more favorable toward the people, not trying to take advantage of them, being like, hey, like, you took some money, we want you to pay it back, but we don't want you to pay a cent more than what you took, because that's insane. Why would you.

[01:10:08] MATTHEW MULHELM: Yeah, yeah. Being in debt to the federal government is mind blowing to me. Like, I'm a citizen who owes my government, you know, like, through this bank or whatever, but it's all federal secured, so it's just. Yeah, it's just. I don't even know. All right, so we're being directed to wrap it up. So I I'm gonna. I'm gonna ask a question. I like this question. Um, was I who you expected me to be?

[01:10:32] CALE GREEN: So I would say no, because my expectations going into this were very, like, open. So I don't want to say, like, yes or no, but, like, more like no, because I I just never had met, you know, someone who had the. The background who at least had been able to talk to them and find out and hear about that background. So I think my, like, how do I put it? Like, my idea was I came with such a little place of knowledge that, like, you could have gone in so many different directions that, like, to find you distilled in the form of a single human. Like, it was, like, surprising to me because I came at it with such, like, a fog, if that makes sense.

[01:11:19] MATTHEW MULHELM: Yeah.

[01:11:24] CALE GREEN: Okay, let's see. I'm trying to read all these questions. Okay. I actually. The top one, there's a reason it's a top one. Was I who you expected me to be?

[01:11:39] MATTHEW MULHELM: I would say mostly no, but there's definitely a little bit of, like, you know, I hate to say that, like, I had an. Just based on your identity or bio, that I expected you to maybe look a certain way, and you definitely look the way that I expected you to, based on your or experience, although I don't look that different from you sitting here. I mean, you know, ball cap, you know, sweater button down, you know, kind of a similar vibe. But. But, yeah, I mean, I was expecting somebody who was. I assume you're caucasian and, you know, kind of, you know, a little bit of, like, 05:00, shadow vibe or, like, a beard vibe. Like. Yeah. Like, physically, you are maybe who I expected you to be. I think I anticipated you to be maybe a little less curious and a little more. I don't want to use the word combative, but maybe, like, a little more hesitant or not welcoming, or maybe I anticipated having somebody asking questions from a different motivation. And I think that's really the difference, is that I think you came into this wanting to ask very open questions, or what I feel like were very, like, open minded questions. And I guess, in a way, I would expect somebody who's doing storycorps to be somewhat open minded. I haven't yet heard a story of somebody being very combative, but I think that was my, maybe it was more. My worry was that I was going to have to maybe defend myself more than I've had to defend myself in this conversation. And, like, I feel like you and I could go get a beer or, like, you and I go hunting now, or, like, you know what I mean? Like, and I don't have anyone in my life who has a lot of your background or your political beliefs. I mean, even my friends that are, like, in the middle are still identifying on the left like they're voting blue. They're. They're supporting those issues, and they're sort of like the Democrat libertarians rather than the republican libertarians.

[01:13:47] CALE GREEN: Yeah. So, yeah, and I hope that we will be able to get a beer since you're an.

[01:13:54] MATTHEW MULHELM: You know, that would. Yeah, we should make that happen. I would love to make that happen and just continue. We've had conversations today that were way too short, and I had, like, eight more follow up questions, and I get the sense that you did, too. And so I think if we had the opportunity to continue sharing our story together, you know, offline, I mean, that would be ideal. Definitely.

[01:14:15] CALE GREEN: Yeah. That sounds lovely.

[01:14:16] MATTHEW MULHELM: Awesome. Drew, you're invited. Yeah, absolutely. Can we please all go.

[01:14:22] CALE GREEN: Go get a drink.

[01:14:23] MATTHEW MULHELM: That would be amazing. Drew, you're responsible. This has been just a really, really fantastic conversation. There have been a lot of times where I had, like, four or eight follow ups that I wanted to ask or comments I wanted to deliver. You each hit upon a bunch of things that are super near and dear to my heart. I lived in Norway for a year. I went to high school over there for a year after finishing in Anchorage and Cale Like, a lot of what you're describing is more or less just like the norwegian education system. And, like, I have done a lot of work with the coalition in homelessness and really impassioned about housing first. And I think that universal basic income seems like a really, like, profitable area to, like, look further into. And so you guys both just hit upon so many things that, like, I feel really strongly about. And, I mean, I know Kayl pretty well. We're good friends. Oh, cool. And so, like, I wrangled him into this in part by saying that I had somebody really interesting, but I know that he's a good talker. And so we've had such good little chats in your sort of attempted storycorps convos that. Yeah. So I would be just absolutely tickled to do that with you. Guys, but.